


a happy ending

by heistsociety



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Homophobia, M/M, Slurs, Suicidal Thoughts, all my works have been pining gay character studies what does that say about me as a person, basically i love nicky hemmick and he deserves more love than he gets from his family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-10-13 10:53:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10512300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heistsociety/pseuds/heistsociety
Summary: When Nicky was three years old, he wore a knight costume for a week and pretended every day to slay a dragon and save a kingdom.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i just started thinking about nicky hemmick and couldn't stop so this is the result. i only lightly skimmed it during the editing process so please let me know if there're any grammar/spelling things i need to fix.  
> also it deals with some heavy stuff - nowhere near as tfc canon but just be warned.

The first time that Nicky Hemmick admitted to himself that he liked boys, he cried himself to sleep, pressed his face into his pillow and muffled the sobs that would've otherwise woken his parents.  
That was the first night that Nicky allowed the doubts to rush into his mind, a hundred thousand what ifs, not a single one of them leading to a happy ending.   
(This was the worst part: not knowing. All Nicky had ever wanted was a happy ending, and for the first time, he realized that it might be out of reach.)  
  
_When Nicky was three years old, he wore a knight costume for a week and pretended every day to slay a dragon and save a kingdom._  
  
The first time that Nicky Hemmick kissed a boy, it was half disgust and half relief, rough lips and hands tangled in hair. His head yelled _wrong wrong wrong_ and his heart pounded _right right right_. His father's words rang in his ears: _homosexuality is a sin, you're going to hell._  
If hell was home to boys who kissed like this, flame and gunpowder, then Nicky didn't know how it could be that bad.  
(Nicky had started learning German that year, filling journals with terrified scribbles that he pretended were projects for school. His parents believed him, but he hid them anyway - nobody could know that he was faking smiles and staring at boys.)  
  
_When Nicky was five years old, his mother pointed a girl in a frilly pink dress out at a wedding. "There's your princess," she said, and laughed when Nicky made a face._  
"Gross," he said.  
'I don't want a princess, I want a prince,' he didn't say.  
  
The first time that Nicky Hemmick had a boyfriend, it was a boy who had the prettiest eyes he'd ever seen. It was messy and fumbling but it left Nicky soaring, his heart pounding as he hid hickeys and hoped his parents never found out.  
But it was fleeting, it was always fleeting. Nicky wouldn't come out of the closet and the boy was getting tired of sneaking around.  
"Why won't you just tell them?" He hissed, pretty eyes turning into deadly weapons.   
"I can't," Nicky answered weakly, because he didn't understand, he would never understand. The last thing in the world that Nicky wanted was for his father to look at him with hatred and his mother to look at him with disappointment.  
"Fuck you," he snarled.  
(That was the first time that someone broke Nicky's heart, though certainly not the last.)  
  
_When Nicky was seven years old, he kissed a girl's cheek after a play date. Their parents laughed and cooed and asked when the wedding was._  
A week later, Nicky kissed a boy's cheek. His father's eyes burned and his mother told him never to do that again. "Boys don't kiss other boys," she said, and that was it.  
  
The first time that Nicky told his parents that he was gay, it was a nightmare. It'd been building up for weeks as his lies grew thinner and his desperation grew stronger.  
He told them on a Friday, and their reactions were just as he imagined. Worse, perhaps, because some horribly hopeful part of Nicky had hoped that his parents might accept him. His father was stone cold and his mother was terribly sad, and Nicky only felt guilt seeping into him for causing his parents such pain.  
He was shipped off to a camp that taught him to hate himself by using his faith as a weapon and a scapegoat for hate.  
When he came back home, he was falling apart and pretending to like girls. He was close to the edge, the only thing keeping him intact was the graduation looming in his future.  
(Some days, though, he wondered if it was worth it to stay or if it would be easier to just disappear, a handful of pills or a kitchen knife.)  
  
_When Nicky was ten years old, he learned that boys who liked other boys were wrong, that 'gay' was an insult and a wanted poster._  
  
The first time that Nicky Hemmick fell in love, he was so, so afraid. He was a senior in high school by then, highly adept in the field of pretending that he was okay when, really, he was nothing but a broken boy held together by a stitched on smile.  
His German teacher told him about the study abroad program, so he took the chance, filled to the brim with a need to get out of South Carolina and away from his parents. He didn't know what he was expecting - an adventure, maybe, a chance to take a breather, not have to pretend to be happy all the time.  
Whatever it was, it certainly wasn't the man who had been waiting for him at the airport, with the smile that could light up New York during a blackout.  
"Hi," he said, and for a moment, Nicky forgot how to breathe. "I'm Erik Klose, your host brother. And you must be-"  
"Nicky Hemmick," Nicky replied, sincerity chipping away at his plastered on smile.  
The next year felt like a free fall and like flying.  
By then, Nicky had accepted that perhaps he wasn't meant for a happy ending - everywhere he went felt like a dead end. But Erik, Erik made his brain shut off and his heart pump hope into his veins, and no matter how hard Nicky tried, he couldn't close that off.   
He didn't want to get hurt again, but it seemed inevitable.  
Erik wasn't anything like the boys that Nicky had previously run around with, quieter and simpler and everything that Nicky was not.   
Nicky tried to stay away at first, carefully maneuvering around Erik, his personality subdued.   
It was no use, though, because Erik had a strange way of seeing right through him and knowing just what to say and Nicky found himself reaching for Erik when things became too hard, drinking in every word that he said.  
(They laid on his roof, once, and stared up at stars. Erik was rambling on about eclipses or constellations or something, and Nicky was staring at the way the moon washed over his hair and turned him into something magical.   
"Eclipses are rare, you know. Some people travel halfway across the world to see one in all its glory."  
Nicky didn't understand why someone would travel so far for that, when Erik's eyes already held the entire universe.)  
(No sooner had the thought flickered across Nicky's mind than he realized that it was already too late to try and protect his heart.)  
  
_When Nicky was twelve years old, a boy with two dads started at his school. His name was Joel, and went home with no friends and bruises littering his body._  
"You fucking faggot," the boys at Nicky's school said, kicking Joel as he begged for mercy.  
"I don't like that family," his father said, eyes slanted as they made small talk during dinner.  
  
The first time that Nicky Hemmick kissed Erik Klose, it was over ice cream in a deserted shop. They were talking in small voices, words drifting through the room, and it hurt to be so close and so far away from him.   
There was a lull in the conversation and Nicky couldn't stand it anymore.  
It was slow and sweet and tasted like the vanilla ice cream left on Erik's lips, and Nicky's brain stilled to a stop. It was just him and Erik and-  
And he pulled away sharply, stumbling over his chair. "Shit. Shit. I'm so- I'm so sorry." It felt like hope but it also felt like the biggest mistake Nicky had ever made. He couldn't lose Erik, he couldn't, he couldn't, he-  
"Wait! Wait! Nicky! What are you- why are you apologizing?"  
"I shouldn't have- I shouldn't have kissed you. I'm sorry, I was caught up in the moment and I-"  
"Nicky, I've been trying to work up the courage to kiss you for the past two months."  
"You... you have?"  
And it was this: bliss and bliss and bliss, something that he hadn't felt since before the first time his father told him that homosexuality was a sin.  
After that, it was a slow climb to happiness. Nicky was shattered, but Erik picked up the pieces and slowly repaired him. It was a hard lesson to relearn, but Nicky slowly found out that he was a being capable of being loved, that being himself and being religious didn't have to be two separate entities. Faith wasn't black-and-white, right-or-wrong, and neither was the world. It was painted in all shades of rainbow colors.  
By the time the year was over, Nicky was skin and flesh and smiles again, and he understood how home could be more person than place, and graduation was a terrifying monster that loomed in the future.  
"Do you want me to come with you?" Erik asked when Nicky began packing.  
"No, I- I have to do this on my own," Nicky answered, because he didn't want Erik to see him like that, at his weakest, too eager to make his parents happy.  
He came out to them again the day after he received his diploma.  
"We- we can get help again," his mother said, voice weary, and for a moment, Nicky felt himself bending, wanting to do what would make his parents happy.  
But then Nicky remembered Erik and the sort of unconditional love that awaited him in Germany.  
"I don't need help," Nicky said, and his voice sounded cold and far away.   
"Get out. Get out of this house and don't ever come back. You are no son of mine." His father's voice was even colder.  
It took all of Nicky's strength to turn and leave. He wasn't sure he would ever be able to do it again.  
He cried to Erik on the phone and cried through his flight to Germany and cried in Erik's arms as Erik held him close and murmured comfort into his skin.  
"I don't have a family anymore," Nicky said through the tears.  
"I'm your family," Erik reminded him, his voice strong and sure and warm.  
Nicky fell in love all over again.  
(Later that year, Erik would propose, over ice cream in a deserted shop. Nicky would say yes, tears in his eyes and hands clasped over his mouth.)  
(And Nicky would wonder if maybe, maybe, maybe, a happy ending was in the works.)  
  
_When Nicky was thirteen years old, he discovered that he didn't like girls, not like all the other boys did._  
They talked about pink lips and short skirts, and Nicky tried to believe that he wanted those things too.  
  
The first time that Nicky Hemmick returned to the States after his parents kicked him out, he was twenty-one and soaring. Everything was perfect - perfect home, perfect boyfriend, perfect life.   
His Aunt Tilda had died, and he didn't know her all too well because she came when Nicky was barely making it through life, but it left him with two identical cousins under his care. And if there was one thing that Nicky couldn't do, it was turn his back on family.  
Andrew was apathetic and Aaron was an asshole, but Nicky couldn't - wouldn't - leave. They were the only biological family that Nicky had left, and so they came first. It didn't matter that being back in Columbia almost broke Nicky - the first few nights spent back in the States were accompanied with phone calls to Erik in panicked German - he wasn't going to leave.   
"They don't care about you," Erik said quietly the first time he came to visit. "You've given up your entire life for them and they don't even care."  
"They're my family," Nicky answered, determined. "I have to take care of them."  
"If you're so busy taking care of them and I'm all the way in Germany, who's going to take care of you?"  
"I'll be okay, Erik."  
Two days later, Erik flew back to Germany. A week after that, Andrew almost killed four men who tried to beat Nicky up, condemning him to spending his days in a drugged haze.  
They did care - this, Nicky always knew - but they equated caring with weakness, a lifetime of terrible lessons that they would never unlearn.   
He followed them to Palmetto State because they needed him, because Andrew asked.  
"You don't even want to go to Palmetto State, Nicky. I don't-"  
"I do want to go to college, and Palmetto State- it's a pretty good college."  
" _Nicky_."  
" _Erik_. Please."  
A pause.  
"Are you sure this is what you want?"  
"Yes, I'm sure."  
"Okay, then. If you're sure."  
So Nicky postponed the wedding, readjusted his life course, and played backliner for the Palmetto State Foxes.  
(When his parents called him up, he felt like a child again, wanting, needing, craving their approval. He stepped back inside and it felt as though someone had punched him in the gut. This is where he had come from, and it was broken, but it was still his home, his childhood.)  
(He should've known it was too good to be true. People like Nicky never got happy endings, and people like Andrew got worse. He called Erik the next day as a blubbering mess, guilt wave after guilt wave after guilt wave.  
"It's my fault," he gasped, curled right into the corner of his bed. "I shouldn't have- I didn't know-"  
"You couldn't have known. It's not your fault."  
"I was supposed to protect them, Erik! I let them down. I let them both down."  
"You did your best, Nicky. You couldn't have known.")  
(And after that it was just one thing after another after another and Erik was Nicky's lifeline.  
"Come back to Germany," Erik said once. "It's all so dangerous over there and I can't- I can't be there. I hate hearing you like his."  
"I love you, Erik, but you know I can't," Nicky replied, that time and every time after that.)  
  
_When Nicky was fourteen years old, he asked the universe why it was so, so cruel, tears streaming down his cheeks._  
  
The first time that Nicky Hemmick got married was also the last time that he got married. It was spring and it was beautiful and everything was falling into place.  
He'd fought for this day, tooth and nail, and he was not going to allow anyone to take it from him.  
"Do you, Nicky Hemmick, take Erik Klose to be your lawfully wedded husband?"  
He looked into Erik's eyes, the ones that held the universe and the future and _love_.  
"I do."  
"Do you, Erik Klose, take Nicky Hemmick to be your lawfully wedded husband?"  
"I do."  
Those words, Nicky thought, were the most exquisite words that he had ever heard.  
(And everything, from the happy to the sad to the scared, had led to this moment. All Nicky had ever wanted was a happy ending, and as he looked up at Erik, his _husband_ , that's exactly what he saw.)


End file.
